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MEMORIAL 



OF 



JAMES THOMAS, Jr. 



ADDRESSES BY 



JOHN A. BROADUS, D. Z>., LL. D., 

And Officers of the College, on the Formal Opening 

OF THE 

Richmond College, ' •..■■',;": 



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September 22, 1887, ' 3 > '^^ > , 






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RICHMOND: 
1888. 



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PREFATORY, 



The name of James Thomas, Jr., has been asso- 
ciated with Richmond College from its foundation. 
He was distinguished for active concern in the 
growth and permanence of the institution, and 
for his benefactions. At the time of his death he 
was President of the Corporation. 

The Trustees have inscribed to the memory 
of his liberality and fidelity a handsome and 
spacious Hall in the main College edifice, to be 
used for Museum and Art purposes. 

This Hall was formally opened in the presence 
of a brilliant assemblage of the friends of the Col- 
lege on the 2 2d of September, 1887. 

The following pages will indicate the character 
of the exercises on this interesting occasion. 



WELCOME. 



BV 



H. H. HARRIS, Chairman of the Faculty. 



My part is to address to the assembled audi- 
ence a simple word of welcome to these academic 
shades and this new hall. Let me, first, in behalf 
of trustees and faculty, greet these young men 
who have gathered from far and near — one from 
the resounding shores of Massachusetts bay, 
another from the golden sands of the Pacific 
slope, a score from the intervening States, from 
Pennsylvania to Texas, and last, though not least, 
these sturdy sons of the Old Dominion. His 
Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth, 
will pardon me if I assume for the nonce to speak 
for Virginia, in congratulating these young gen- 
tlemen on the auspicious opening of the session 
and welcoming them to this capital city to pursue 



a course of mental and moral training for the 
duties soon to devolve upon them as citizens and 
as men. These reverend gentlemen and city 
fathers will join me in welcoming you to the rare 
social and religious privileges of Richmond, and 
in hoping that during your sojourn you may enjoy 
them to the full. Other sweet words of welcome 
some of you will hear — they will come best in 
softer tones than I can use. 

Next I beg to greet with peculiar pleasure these 
representatives of our sister institutions who sit 
with us and take part in the joys of this evening. 
One of the most pleasant things in our educa- 
tional system is the loving sisterhood, the gener- 
ous emulation between the colleges of the State. 
We accept your presence, gentlemen, as a token 
of your interest in us, which we most heartily 
reciprocate. 

And now, in behalf of the three estates of the 
college — trustees, faculty and students — I greet 
most heartily this galaxy of talent and wisdom 
which adorns the platform, and this compact array 
of manliness and beauty which fills the floor. A 
college must keep aloof from the whirl of the 
busy world, enough, at least, to give its strength 

[6] 



i 



to those recondite matters of science and of lite- 
rature which form the unseen foundations of all 
real and reliable progress In civilization and 
enlightenment. But our situation, as It were, in 
the ''fierce light that beats upon a throne," our 
view from these towers of historic fields and 
undying monuments, our proximity to the throb- 
bing heart of this railway and manufacturing cen- 
tre, puts us morally, as well as locally, in the line 
of improvement, and keeps us in vitalizing con- 
tact with the political, commercial, social, and 
religious thought of the world. Thus while our 
courses of instruction are specially for the benefit 
of the students, we covet the hearty sympathy of 
the good people of Richmond, and shall often 
open this hall, as well as our chapel, for popular 
lectures, at which all present will be most heartily 
welcome. 

One other group is here for whom this occasion 
has the deepest Interest. To most of us the even- 
ing Is one of unmixed rejoicing; to them it recalls 
the memory of unutterable loss. The trustees 
have fitly shown their appreciation of a liberal 
benefactor, a wise counsellor, a faithful officer, by 
dedicating this hall to his memory. They have 

[7] 



spared neither time nor money in trying to finish 
it with something of the massive strength, the 
hearty genuineness, and the artistic taste of him 
whose name it bears. To her who was the part- 
ner of his inmost thoughts, and to the children 
around whom his affections clustered, Richmond 
College will always offer its warmest welcome. 



PRESENTATION. 



BY 



WM. E. HATCHER, Chairman of the Committee. 



Mr. Ellyson : I stand here to discharge a 
grateful duty. The Jeter Memorial Committee 
has commissioned me to transfer, through you, 
to the custody of the Trustees of Richmond 
College, this Memorial Hall, with the request 
that it may, in perpetuo^ be consecrated to the 
purposes for which it has been constructed. 

Permit me to accompany this formal presenta- 
tion with a brief explanatory statement. Rich- 
mond College had a modest origin, and it has 

[8] 



been by a slow and arduous struggle that she has 
attained to her present attitude of distinction and 
power. 

It becomes us to hold in lively remembrance the 
fact that from the days of her infancy she has had 
great-hearted friends, by whose nourishing love 
and needful gifts she has been made what she is. 

A few years ago, one of these friends, the self- 
made and yet unselfish Jeter, well-ripened in 
years, went to his grave. When that event, so 
fraught with sorrow to the college, occurred, there 
was heard, at once, a strong popular clamor that 
some suitable and abiding monument should be 
erected — such as would embalm his memory, and 
at the same time help the cause of Christian edu- 
cation. In response to that public wish, a com- 
mittee was appointed to provide the monument, 
and it must suffice to say that within three years 
the committee was enabled to erect the Jeter 
Memorial Hall, and that, too, ^^ithout one dollar 
of expense to the college. 

It came to pass that, during the progress of 
that work, another excellent and eminent bene- 
factor of the college came to the end of his 
career. That friend was James Thomas, Jr., and 

[9] 



I do not find it easy to repress the impulse to pay 
my modest tribute to his name. But as Hps far 
worthier than mine wait to tell the story of his 
work and worth, it befits me to be silent, except 
to say that the Jeter Memorial Committee, shar- 
ing in the popular conviction that the name of 
Mr. Thomas, also, ought to be indissolubly linked 
with the college, appeared before the trustees, 
asking that they might have the honor of provid- 
ing a fitting memorial for him. This request met 
a prompt and cordial approval on the part of the 
trustees, and the committee, after many weeks 
of anxious deliberation, decided to build this hall 
as a monument to Mr. Thomas. We open it to- 
night in his honor, and pray that it may ever 
stand as the gift of this college to one of the 
truest and wisest friends she has ever had. As 
to the form of this memorial, or as to the taste 
displayed in its construction and adornment, it 
does not become me, as the organ of the com- 
mittee, to utter a single word. Here it is — the 
Thomas Memorial Hall — and it remains for others, 
and not for us, to pronounce judgment upon it. 

I may add, however, that this hall is intended to 
be more than a monument. It would have been 



rank disloyalty to the memory of an eminently 
simple and practical man, if we had built for him 
a splendid but useless mausoleum. It is none the 
less honorable to him that the memorial which is 
to keep alive the public recollection of his services 
is designed also to confer choice and exalted 
blessings upon the living. It takes its place in 
this institution, and will bear its part in the work 
of higher education. 

I present this hall without furniture, and with- 
out that material necessary to make it subserve 
the purposes for which it has been erected. For 
this we make no apology. It was ours to build 
the hall, and not to fill it. 

This entire building, now happily finished, is 
truly monumental. While its two stately halls 
strikingly punctuate the services of its two most 
illustrious benefactors, it is proper to say that 
provision has been made to keep in affectionate 
remembrance all the friends who have made great 
gifts to the college. In the days that are to come, 
this magnificent building, crowning the noblest 
height of Richmond, will stand a silent witness 
to the magnanimous services of the fathers and 
friends of Richmond College. It will keep com- 

[II] 



pany with that sacred pile soon to rise, in the 
adjacent park, in honor of the noblest Christian 
soldier that this country has produced. 

This is the James Thomas Memorial Hall ; 
beneath is that of Jeter. Both equal in capacity, 
each fraught with useful intentions, and suited 
well to commemorate the virtues of their respec- 
tive heroes. In their lives, Jeter and Thomas 
wrought for the college's honor ; now, that they 
are dead, the college honors them. United in 
life, they are not divided in death. 

And now, Mr. Ellyson, as I pass to you the 
keys of this hall, I am reminded that the work of 
the committee is ended, and not without a tinge 
of sadness we must bow ourselves out among 
the things that were. But I am reminded that, in 
saying that this building is completed, I have 
made a mistake. I recall the ill-spoken word. 
We have built a home for art, and a chamber for 
literature, but down beneath is yet an unfinished 
department that is intended to be the home of 
science. Let me say for the committee, that, 
while we would relish a vacation, and are not cry- 
ing for other worlds to conquer, we would, if some 
generous friend would give us the means, make 

[12] 



a sacrifice of our feelings and continue our exist- 
ence until we had also finished the scientific 
department. 



ACCEPTANCE. 



BY 



H. K. ELLYSON, President of Trustees, 



Mr. Chairman : 

The Board of Trustees cannot adequately 
express in words their gratitude and thanks to 
your committee for the monuments you have 
built to two of the most eminent friends of the 
college. In more impressive and enduring form 
than human speech, these memorials themselves 
speak your praises and tell how zealously and 
successfully you have labored. They remind us, 
too, how greatly we are indebted to friends in all 
parts of the country, whose gifts enabled you to 
complete your labor of love in a manner worthy 
of the men you would honor and of the institution 
which was the object of their life-long solicitude. 
The trustees gratefully receive from you this 

beautiful and spacious hall, to be ever hereafter 

[13] 



dedicated to the memory of one of the earHest 
and most Hberal benefactors of Richmond Col- 
lege. But for his timely aid, given when most 
needed, we might not now be able to rejoice in 
the bright prospect that opens before us. In our 
darkest hours, his great heart was always full of 
hope, and his free hand made possible the highest 
ambition of his life — the founding in this city of 
an institution of learning that should become the 
pride of his native State. Others may follow with 
larger gifts than his, but none can come with 
greater potency for good, because his help was 
given when the very life of the college seemed to 
tremble in painful uncertainty. To Jas. Thomas, 
Jr., more than to any other man, we owe the 
establishment of Richmond College on a perma- 
nent foundation, solid and broad enough to sus- 
tain the grand structure which this and the coming 
generations shall build upon it. 

The trustees do not forget that where your 
work on this hall ends theirs begins. It comes 
into their possession in all its lovely emptiness, 
and is yet to be furnished and adorned with the 
treasures of art and nature it was designed to 
receive. Already a good beginning has been 

[14] 



made in collections for this purpose, but the 
trustees will not be satisfied until all the space 
in this hall is filled with rare and choice objects 
worthy of a place on its walls or in its cabinets. 

I trust it will not be thought out of place on 
this occasion for the trustees to acknowledge 
their obligation to the family of Mr. Thomas for 
their liberal endowment of a lectureship, which 
secures an annual course of lectures at the col- 
lege, open to the public, by some eminent man of 
the times. It is another of many evidences of 
their deep interest in this institution, and of their 
desire to cultivate a popular taste for the true 
and beautiful in art, philosophy and science. 

Again thanking you, gentlemen, for what you 
have so well and wisely done, I beg to assure you 
that the trustees of the college will ever hold in 
grateful remembrance the work of the Jeter 
Memorial Committee. Indeed, we have so high 
an appreciation of your architectural taste and 
skill, and of your happy facility in securing the 
means with which to execute your plans, that we 
shall, as a further testimony of our esteem, 
appoint your committee our permanent monu- 
ment builders. 

[15] 



I 
I 



t 



ADDRESS. 



JOHN A BROADUS, D. D., LL. D. 



To build a museum in connection with a public 
library, and as part of an institution for higher 
education, is but a return to the original elevated 
application of that term. A museum among the 
Greeks was primarily any haunt of the Muses ; 
next, a place for the study of objects dear to the 
Muses, such as art, poetry, history and eloquence. 
Plato and Aristotle erected each a building called 
a museum, containing rooms for the study of 
philosophy, and — then first in the history of cul- 
ture — a public library, open to students and visi- 
tors. This was imitated on a much larger scale 
by the great museum at Alexandria, collecting a 
library that became one of the wonders of the 

[17] 



world, and furnishing to the students lecture- 
rooms, grand porticoes, and beautiful out-door 
walks, suited to the favorite Greek method of 
peripatetic instruction, together with a common 
hall, or mess-room, in which the professors and 
students might dine together, and thus at the 
same time supply to each other a feast of reason. 
From this celebrated model of a museum down to 
the now current use of the term to denote a mere 
collection of curiosities and monstrosities is almost 
as great a degradation as in certain current uses 
of the term professor. 

But there are still instances in which a museum, 
though no longer comprising halls of instruction, 
denotes something elevated and dignified. The 
British Museum contains one of the great modern 
libraries, far surpassing in number the collection 
at Alexandria. And even when the library is 
excluded, there are not a few great museums in 
Europe and America which are designed to fur- 
nish means of education. They do this in two 
principal ways. They collect objects of natural 
history, in its three great departments of mine- 
ralogy, botany, and zoology, and arrange these 
according to strict scientific classification, so as to 

[i8] 



offer facilities for scientific study. In the foremost 
collection of this kind in America — the Agassiz 
Museum at Cambridge — there is in the first room 
a complete set of skeletons and preserved objects 
beginning with the very lowest forms of animal 
life, which it is difficult to distinguish from vege- 
table, and ascending in regular order to the high- 
est animal — /. e., man. What a privilege for eager 
students of biology, or for juvenile classes with 
their instructors, to enter freely, again and again, 
this noble " synoptic room." In the Metropolitan 
Museum of New York, and in the Smithsonian 
Institution, pains are also taken to render the 
grand collections accessible and available for the 
instruction of visiting classes by their teachers. 
Elementary knowledge of natural history is easily 
within reach of pupils ten or twelve years old, or 
even younger pupils where they can behold the 
actual objects; and it is worth considering whether 
elementary botany and zoology ought not to be 
much studied by such children, especially those 
who can occasionally visit a museum, instead of 
pushing them into English syntax, which scarcely 
any child of twelve can really understand, or into 
mathematical studies, for which only a few are at 

[19] 



that age prepared. Perhaps it will not be many 
years before various classes from private and 
public schools in Richmond and vicinity will be 
repeatedly seeking access to the collections that 
shall here be found. At any rate, the College 
students, and all adult minds disposed to inquire 
into geology and biology will find such collections 
not only helpful but necessary. 

The other way in which a museum furnishes 
material of education is by the collection of anti- 
quities. There is perhaps no department of know- 
ledge in which object lessons are of greater value. 
The implements of ancient warfare, the utensils 
and ornaments of ancient life, the shrunken fea- 
tures of some mummied Egyptian, will give wings 
to historical imagination, and in a moment trans- 
port the student into the very midst of the ancient 
world. Nor is our comparatively new country 
without its objects of antiquarian interest. That 
relics of the Indians, and of the mound-building 
race in this country, may form, an extremely inter- 
esting collection, very stimulating to historical 
inquiry and reflection, may be seen at the home 
of a well-known Richmond gentleman. There are 

also many relics of ancestral history in Virginia 

[20] 



and the adjacent States that might be gradually 
collected, and would greatly help in reproducing 
the life of the early settlers and the colonial times. 
Our gifted and lamented romance-writer and his- 
torian, John Esten Cooke, appears to have fairly 
proven, in his volume entitled "Virginia," that 
the story of Pocahontas saving the life of John 
Smith must, after all, be accepted as historical. 
The skeptical mode of dealing with histor}^ which 
Niebuhr rendered fashionable has led to much 
valuable research, but has gone to great extremes, 
and the inevitable reaction is already visible in 
many directions. No part of American colonial 
history is so thoroughly romantic as that of the 
Old Dominion ; and much remains to be done in 
collecting its antiquities and digesting its docu- 
ments and traditions. In like manner there must 
be many memorials of Virginia's share in the 
Revolution, and of her great series of Presidents 
and other statesmen, that ought to be collected 
into a museum at the State capital. And there is 
another great and mighty conflict, in which Virgi- 
nia bore an unequalled share of suffering, and 
was not backward in achievement, which already, 
for the rising generation, is a thing of the past, 

[21] 



and whose precious and often perishable reHcs 
ought to be rapidly gathered. The conflict is 
over, its animosities have been quite laid aside, 
and we are contented and patriotic citizens of the 
United States : but the relics of that great civil 
war are sacred, for us and for our children, and 
its heroes, its splendid heroes, shall be famous 
forever. 

We greatly need in this still new country to 
cultivate the historical spirit — to cherish a glow- 
ing love of the past ; and to this end antiquarian 
collections are of real importance. 

This room is opened as both a museum and an 
art hall. The development and discipline of our 
aesthetical nature is by no means the least impor- 
tant department of human education. The tem- 
porary affectation of aestheticism which a few years 
ago connected itself with an eccentric and some- 
what ridiculous Englishman was a mere bubble 
on the surface, and should mislead no one as to 
the importance of the matters involved. The 
aesthetical is a substantive, potent, and Indispen- 
sable element of human nature. There is a very 
close and striking resemblance between our 
aesthetical and our ethical nature. The language 

[22] 



of the nursery, which will always reward the most 
loving attention of the philologian or of the phi- 
losopher, has long ago taken account of this re- 
semblance, by employing "pretty" and "ugly" to 
represent moral and immoral behavior. "Pretty 
is as pretty does," constitutes a profound maxim 
of ethical philosophy. And from youth to age 
one of the most vital departments of self-educa- 
tion is the cultivation of moral taste, so that what 
is good shall always seem beautiful to us, and 
whatever is bad shall offend us as ugly. Accord- 
ingly, we delight to make beautiful the accessories 
of our worship. There is obvious and real dan- 
ger here of excess and even substitution, but there 
is also danger of defect. Civilization would per- 
ish if human beings should cease to care for the 
adornment of their pefsons and their homes ; and 
how dry and dull would worship become if in its 
accessories and means of expression we should, 
or rather could, wholly eschew the beautiful. See 
the lesson that nature teaches us. The theory 
of natural selection tends to identify the beautiful 
and the useful in plants and animals, by showing 
how those that were more beautiful attracted 
admiring attention, and were thus perpetuated 

[23] 



rather than the ugly. But, as everywhere else 
in the Darwinian speculation this only moves the 
question a little further back, leaving us still to 
recognize in God's works the existence of the 
beautiful, and the love of the beautiful among all 
living creatures. And then, what as to the 
exquisite beauty in the shape and hues of the 
clouds, in the golden sunsets, in the rainbow, in 
the very composition of light! This celestial 
gratification of our deep and passionate love of 
the beautiful may furnish not merely an illustra- 
tion in Ethics, but an argument in Theism. 

The term art ought to include everything that 
appeals to our aesthetical nature. According to 
current philosophical use, there are six leading 
departments of art, viz : architecture and land- 
scape-gardening, sculpture and painting, music 
and poetry. The two last are now very rarely 
included among the fine arts, and may, perhaps, 
be omitted from view in treating of this as an 
art hall, as they are otherwise not wholly neg- 
lected. Architecture and landscaping certainly 
deserve far more attention than they have 
received in the greater part of our new and 
growing country. It is matter of rejoicing when 

[24] 



the buildings erected by an institution of learning, 
and its encompassing grounds can awaken and 
gratify and educate the aesthetical nature of every 
pupil. There are apt to be some among the 
guardians of such an institution who object to all 
expenditure upon architectural effect and improve- 
ment of grounds, but whose views must be cor- 
rected, if possible, and otherwise must be politely 
disregarded, if such a seat of learning is to become 
really suited to its aims. Ah ! the delicate and 
sensitive impressibility of gifted youths in the 
college years ! Just to look every day at some 
symmetrical building, or at some grand and 
shapely tree — perhaps the very loveliest object 
in the vegetable world — may, in the course of 
years, profoundly impress a susceptible soul that 
is to be in the next generation a great power in 
society ; and where college students dwell amid 
such an environment, many a home in village or 
country, many a public building or park will, in 
the coming generations, feel the effect. 

But the present use of the term ''art" in our 
schools is pretty much restricted to two of the 
fine arts. An art hall is naturally thought of 
as a place for collecting choice products and pro- 

[25] 



motin^ early study qf sculpture and painting. 
With these will of course be coupled such 
subordinate and accessory arts as wood-carving, 
engraving on metal, stone or wood, drawing, 
and the various kinds of photography, and also 
the combinations of arts which connect themselves 
with the design and production of beautiful furni- 
ture and apparel. 

Now, what part have such collections of art In 
the work of higher education? We need not 
dwell upon the fact that at least a few students of 
every session will be naturally capable of artistic 
creation, and upon them these collections and 
instructions will exert the most delightful and 
inspiring influence. You will never know, as you 
casually enter such a hall, but that one of the 
quiet youths who perhaps make way for the 
visitor and retire, or perhaps remain In absorbed 
contemplation, may be just now receiving Impulses 
that will carry him in coming years to high artistic 
achievement and fame. Let no one think lightly 
of these few. Some of the older States of our 
Union would have been able to retain, during the 
last two or three generations, many choice young 

men who have gone West, If the controlling pub- 

[26] 



lie opinion had more strongly favored the devel- 
opment among themselves of the industrial arts 
and the fine arts, and of the artistic in literature, 
and all the complex pursuits and products of 
high and complete civilization. 

But a point of more general interest would be 
the educational effect of art collections upon the 
students at large. Nearly forty years ago, a 
young Virginian, who had never before been out 
of the State, went to spend some days in Phila- 
delphia, and twice gave several hours to the old 
Academy of Art, especially to the paintings of 
Benjamin West, and to plaster casts of the most 
celebrated Greek statues. It was a revelation ; 
it opened up a new world, and invested life with 
new possibilities of delight. Such single and 
powerful impressions are more distinctly remem- 
bered, but unspeakably greater in educational 
value is the opportunity of frequent and leisurely 
observation of such inspiring objects. Familiarity 
never breeds contempt where the object is one of 
elevated character and interest, and where the 
soul is at all susceptible ; but the frequent con- 
templation becomes an ever-growing educational 
force, shaping the intellect, coloring the imagina- 

[27] 



tion, stirring the deepest and sweetest emotions. 
Happy those whose childhood and youth are spent 
in full view of great mountains, or beside the 
sounding sea, doubly happy if they enjoy both 
together, like the people of Palestine, Greece, 
Italy, Scotland. In like manner, happy the stu- 
dents who, just at that interesting point when 
intellect is approaching maturity, when culture is 
broadening the range of imagination and varying 
the objects of passion, spend several years amid 
the perpetual influence of architecture and land- 
scape, and with the opportunity of daily visits to 
an inspiring collection of statuary and painting. 
And let it be remembered that a few works of 
high excellence, even a few good plaster casts or 
marble copies of the great statues, and a few 
copies of the great pictures, will kindle the sus- 
ceptible observer and awaken those unutterable 
but quenchless yearnings which become a mould- 
ing power in the character and life, while a mass of 
poor stuff would but degrade the taste, if it did 
not fortunately repel and disgust. May it be not 
many years before the young of both sexes who 
come on some brief visit to Richmond, shall not 

only delight in its varied hills and splendid streets 

[28] 



and noble river and beautiful, peaceful Holly- 
wood, shall not only gaze on the exquisite symme- 
try and homely grace of the old Capitol, and search 
out the Houdon statue, not only stand entranced 
before the equestrian Washington and his grand 
Revolutionary comrades — a work of art with 
which not many of its kind in all the world can 
be compared — but shall presently come out along 
Grace street to behold the new statue of one 
whom Virginians to the remotest ages must 
delight to honor, and then entering Richmond's 
own College, shall find that all these beauties of 
nature and glories of architecture and triumphs 
of the modern chisel have but prepared them 
somewhat better to appreciate even copies of 
those immortal works in which the old Italian 
painters and the ancient Greek sculptors still 
reign supreme in the highest domains of art. 

This Museum and Art Hall is now formally 
opened as a Memorial of James Thomas, Jr., who, 
for more than forty years, was a trustee of Rich- 
mond College, and for some years before his 
death President of the Board, who is well-known 
to have been by far the largest contributor to its 
financial support and endowment, and who, with- 

[29] 



out stint, employed his magnificent business 
energies and wisdom in all manner of efforts to 
promote its usefulness and prosperity. The occa- 
sion is, therefore, appropriate for offering some 
account of his life and character, with special 
emphasis upon his interest in higher education, 
and particularly in this institution.* 

The grandfather of Mr. Thomas came from 
England and settled on the Rappahannock river, 
where his estate is still known as ''Thomas's -p 
Neck." He had a good education, but was not 
very successful in managing his pecuniary affairs. 
Of Mr. Thomas's father and mother, who lived in 
Caroline county, it is known that they were intel- 
ligent, having the ordinary education of the time ; 
that they belonged to the best society of that 
region, and that they were marked by high 
Christian character and ardently devoted to the 
Methodist persuasion. The father was named 
James. Before he died his son was already 
widely known in the business world as James 
Thomas, Jr. To avoid business inconvenience 

*Some facts have been derived, and occasionally an expression borrowed 
from articles which appeared after Mr. Thomas's death in the Richmond 
Dispatch y The State, and the Religious Herald. 

[30] 



and confusion with another man named James 
Thomas, he found it best to retain the "Junior" 
throughout his Hfe. He was born, in CaroHne 
county, February 8, 1806, and Hved till October 
8, 1882. He had the education given in the 
neighborhood schools of that period, with the 
inestimable advantage of an intelligent home- 
circle and free association with the better class of 
neighbors. He must have been trained from 
childhood to correct speech and courteous man- 
ners. He had an early and life-long love of read- 
ing and of conversation with intelligent people. 
In our day there is quite a tendency to suppose 
that nothing can be learned except from books — 
and from experience ; and we do well to remem- 
ber to how great an extent any susceptible youth 
is educated by the conversation at home and with 
the neighbors. As the years went on Mr. Thomas 
became highly educated in the school of life, not 
only accurate in thinking, but expressing him- 
self in speech and writing with great precision 
and excellent taste, as well as with characteristic 
force. Very many of the eminent who are com- 
monly spoken of as uneducated became highly 
educated before they reached middle age in this 

[31] 



i^ 



same school of life ; and It is a noteworthy and 
highly suggestive fact that nearly all men of this 
class are exceedingly anxious that their own 
children should have the finest educational 
advantages, and not a few of them anxious for 
the maintenance of such schools and colleges as 
may offer like advantages to the children of 
others. Quite possibly they sometimes over 
estimate the benefit which they themselves would 
have derived from higher education in youth, and 
are thereby led into greater enthusiasm. For, 
after all, though it may seem high treason to say 
so on a college platform, the grade of a man's 
practical intelligence and working force in this 
world does not depend so much upon his educa- 
tional advantages as upon the question what sort 
of human being came into the world when he was 
born, and what influences surrounded his child- 
hood. 

Mr. Thomas was living In Richmond as early 
as 1827, at the age of twenty-one. It is known 
that he came to the city several years earlier. 
His brother Archibald, who was ten years older, 
had been in Richmond some years engaged in 
business, and the youth lived with him, and found 

[32] 



employment in the city. A young man coming 
from a country home to find business in a city 
presents one of the most common phenomena of 
Hfe, and especially of American life for the last 
two or three generations. The proportion of 
city to country population is much greater now, 
but, heretofore, the great majority of those who 
have built up our cities by their business or pro- 
fessional career, came from the country. Though 
in diminished proportion, this must always con- 
tinue to be the case. Here is a perpetual reason 
why city people should feel a deep interest in the 
promotion of education and religion in the 
country, and why country people should feel 
keenly interested in the social, religious, and 
business life of cities. The highest type of 
modern civilization requires the co-ordinate devel- 
opment and improvement of city and country, 
and all petty jealousies between town and country 
should be merged in a sense of common interests 
and absolute niutual dependence. 

During the year 1827 the young man was 
baptized by Rev. John Kerr, celebrated through- 
out North Carolina and Virginia for his imagina- 
tive, impassioned, overpowering eloquence, who, 

l33l 



trom 1825 to 1833, was pastor of the First Baptist 
Church in Richmond. Thus began, at the age 
of twenty-one, that religious life which must be 
thought of as an ever-pervading and controlling 
/^ power throughout Mr. Thomas's career, and that 
happy and useful connection with the First Bap- 
tist Church, which lasted fifty-five years. He at 
once began, in September, 1827, to teach in the 
^Sunday School, of which, twenty years later, he 
was to become the Superintendent. Happy the 
young man whose religious devotion and activity 
begin at least as early as his opening maturity. 

The elder brother, Archibald, also became an 
eminently useful Christian, as an ofificer of the 
First Baptist Church, as trustee of the College, 
and for many years the devoted treasurer of the 
Foreign Mission Board, as a generous giver, and 
the head of a most hospitable home. He was a 
man of somewhat taciturn habit, but of strong 
mind and sound judgment, large heart and singu- 
larly deep piety. 

In the Spring of 1829 James Thomas, Jr., went 
to Lynchburg to purchase tobacco for a house 
which had a contract with the Richmond agent 
of the French Government. He was doing well 

[34] 



at this, but the French Government presently 
appointed another agent, who gave the business 
to a different house, and by a single turn the 
young man lost what he had made. He used 
sometimes to tell the young business friends of 
his old age that at this time h(* was really ''broke," 
but he let nobody know it. Buying and selling 
flour for a short time, he relieved the pressure, 
and then, by repeated and determined efforts, he 
formed a connection with the new French agent 
in Richmond, and so could again hope to do well. 
Very soon, however, he concluded to begin busi- 
ness for himself as a Richmond manufacturer. 
He had been practicing rigid economy. His 
largest annual salary being six hundred dollars, 
he had saved three hundred of it. His father 
could spare him three hundred dollars, and so, 
with a small capital, he began manufacturing in 
Richmond, probably in the beginning of 1830. 
This brief career in Lynchburg shows already the 
unconquerable resolution and varied resources 
by which he could turn failure into success, and 
saw in success only an incentive to aim higher. 
A very intelligent friend, who, after Mr. Thomas's 
death, wrote anonymously in one of the papers, 

[35] 



mentions that it was his rule from the beginning 
never to borrow money, and that he tried to be 
always cheerful, and keep his business powers in 
the best working order. 

If we survey Mr Thomas's business career in 
Richmond from this beginning in 1830 to the 
opening of the war in i860, we find it throughout 
controlled by certain great principles — to buy 

i/^ good materials, make a good article, find a good 
market — to abhor shams and tricks of every kind, 
and maintain scrupulous integrity in all dealings. 
These excellent principles would insure to any 
man at least moderate success ; but eminent suc- 
cess required something additional. Mr. Thomas 
brought to bear high intellectual powers and labo- 

^'rious study of everything that pertained to his 
pursuits. He thoroughly informed himself about 
his line of business — combining broad views with 
patient mastery of all important details — and then 
looked keenly into its undeveloped possibilities. 
For example, he early saw that great value could 
be given in certain ways to the bright leaf tobacco, 
and that certain portions of Virginia and North 
Carolina were particularly adapted to the produc- 
tion of this variety. By his example and influence 

[36] 



and fostering care a demand was created which 
caused the extended cultivation of what is now 
said to be almost the only profitable kind of 
tobacco grown in those two States. He did not 
content himself with the ordinary markets afforded 
by this country and the monopolizing European 
governments. When California began to fill up 
with settlers, Mr. Thomas produced an article so 
carefully prepared that it would stand without 
injury the voyage around South America and 
twice across the tropics, and thus was for some 
years almost unrivalled in the California trade. 
When Australia began to fill up, he promptly 
entered that field also. As the insurance upon 
that class of factories would naturally be high, he 
early adopted the policy of abstaining from all 
insurance, and taking the risk himself, both as to 
factories and ships. A similar course is known to 
have been recently pursued by other very large 
organizations for the conduct of business involv- 
ing heavy risks. Some have thought that in Mr. 
Thomas's case the plan turned out badly, for he 
three times had several factories burned — in 1853, 
in 1865 (at the close of the war), and again in 
1872. It is not important for us to attack the 

[37] 



L^ 



financial problem ; it is known that he never 
regretted having pursued this course. Let us 
note in general, that eminently successful men do 
not escape the contingencies of their calling, but 
they accept these as part of the situation, and 
press forward with all the greater diligence. The 
notion of which boys are so fond, that some men 
are simply lucky and some unlucky, may be fos- 
tered by dime novels, but finds very little encour- 
agement in the higher literature or in the thought- 
ful observation of actual life. 

Like every highly successful and upright busi- 
ness man, Mr. Thomas contributed greatly to the 
prosperity of the city in which he lived. For 
instance, he bought real estate and improved it, 
having confidence in the growth of the city. He 
gave remunerative employment to a large and 
increasing number of persons. How can any 
man acquire great wealth except by employing 
many others, and by supplying the wants of the 
general public with satisfactory articles at reason- 
able prices? And how can a man permanently 
accumulate extensive possessions save by giving 
them shapes that make them an addition to the 
general wealth of the community, and conducive 

[38] 



to the general welfare of society? There maybe 
exceptions, but such is the general law. 

Mr. Thomas's family life began the year after 
he established himself as a manufacturer. He 
was first married in 1831 to Miss Mary Cornick a 
Puller, of Caroline county, who died five years 
later, leaving two children, William D. and Mary 
Ella. The older friends of the former please 
themselves with observing that in several points 
of personal appearance, and in some highly im- 
portant specific talents and traits of character, 
he seems every year more like his father. The 
daughter is fondly remembered by many of us 
as a beautiful and graceful woman, intelligent and 
genuine, frank and cordial and glad to do good, 
seeming in all respects fitted to become the bright 
centre of a well-ordered and happy home. She 
was married in 1862 to Hon. W. D. Quesenberry, 
but died in 1865. Mr. Thomas was married a 
second time in 1843 to Miss Mary Woolfolk ^ 
Wortham, of Richmond. Not in this case, as in 
the former, are we precluded through lack of 
information from any attempt at characterization. 
May it be many a long year before any one will 
feel at liberty to say publicly what a wide circle of 

[39] 



admiring and devoted friends have long thought 
and feh. From this marriage there were six 
daughters who grew up, besides a daughter and 
a son named James who died in infancy, The six 
are well known as Mrs. J. L. M. Curry, Mrs. J. 
K. Conneily, Mrs. Thomas M. RutherfoW, Mrs.- 
Jas. W. Allison, Mrs. Calderon Carlisle, and Mrs. 
Richmond Pearson. Mrs. Allison died in 1876 ; 
and it may be permitted one who had peculiar 
occasion to know and love her to say, that she was 
a woman of unique personal grace and character- 
istically Southern beauty, and of such devout con- 
scientiousness, thorough Christian unselfishness, 
and exquisitely feminine tenderness as one seldom 
meets through a long life. And without permis- 
sion it may be said of the entire group that rarely 
in all the world has a father been blessed with 
seven daughters, each of such marked individual- 
ity, and all so conspicuous for personal attrac- 
tions, high intelligence and accomplishments, and 
always moving in the highest social environment, 
at home or abroad, with easy dignity and grace. 
Amid this happy home circle Mr. Thomas delight- 
ed to exercise a lavish and cordial hospitality. 
Besides social entertainments shared by whatever 

[40] 



was best In Richmond society, and sometimes 
given on a princely scale, he welcomed to his 
home great numbers of friends from every part 
of the country, particularly Baptist ministers. In 
1859, when the Southern Baptist Convention met 
in Richmond, he is said to have received into his 
own house more than sixty persons. All this hos- 
pitality was not only frequent and generous, but 
so cordial, considerate, complete, that one would 
never have thought of suggesting alteration. The 
far-famed Southern, and doubly famed Virginian 
hospitality, has perhaps never been more nobly 
exemplified. 

In this most active period of Mr. Thomas's 
career (1830 to i860), he showed characteristic 
zeal and activity In church life. A good many of 
our energetic and prosperous men of business 
persuade themselves that they ought to be excused 
from active participation in church work, because 
so very busy otherwise, Let us all rejoice that 
James Thomas, Jr., did not think so. Practical 
wisdom and energy of character are among the 
most important of all talents, and the Christian 
man who possesses them is as solemnly bound to 
use them freely in Christian work as is the most 

[41J 



gifted minister to use his powers of eloquent 
speech. Many and many a church might double 
its efficiency in a twelve-month, if the laymen of 
its present membership would but consecrate 
their practical energies to church work. We may 
dwell upon two special instances of Mr. Thomas's 
active exertion during this period. 

When, in 1840, it was proposed by the First 
Church to build a new house of worship, the pas- 
tor, Dr. Jeter, suggested that the one thousand 
colored members might be organized into a sepa- 
rate church and occupy the old house of worship. 
The idea was new, and to many persons very 
unacceptable. The Baptist churches of Virginia 
had always taken much interest in the colored 
people, and almost every church in town and 
country had some colored members. The chief 
reason why the colored people generally inclined 
to the Baptists was doubtless this, that the Bap- 
tists did not regard early religious education as a 
necessary condition of Christian life, but urged 
the most ignorant adults to accept the Gospel as 
they were. This same idea and method produced 
like effects among the Karens of Burmah, the 
Telugus of India, and elsewhere ; and in some of 

[42] 



our Southern States the Methodists have gained 
a large following among the colored people, for a 
similar reason. Nobody in 1840 opposed the 
reception of negroes into church membership, 
and it was common to assign them a gallery or 
other special portion of the house of worship, or 
even the whole house for special services. But 
the Southampton insurrection in 1831 had been 
stirred up by a negro who claimed to be a pro- 
phet, and this led to stringent Virginia laws for- 
bidding religious meetings of the negroes unless 
in the presence of white people. The last diffi- 
culty was overcome by appointing a committee of 
white brethren, some of whom should attend all 
meetings at the African church, and by the con- 
sent of Robert Ryland, President of Richmond 
College, to become pastor of the church. From 
1 84 1 to 1865, Dr. Ryland elevated the office by 
the dignity of his position and character, and filled 
it with judicious and faithful labor, baptizing dur- 
ing that period 3,832 persons, while constantly 
keeping down the number by sober instruction 
and careful examination of candidates. In fact, 
the entire religious status of the colored people 
in Virginia had by i860 been very greatly im- 

[43] 



proved, and largely through the success of this 
movement in Richmond, which Dr. Jeter was fore- 
most in introducing, and Dr. Ryland in conduct- 
ing. But one of the main difficulties at the out- 
set was financial. How could the large house, 
then vacated by the First Baptist Church, be 
secured for the colored people, who were nearly 
all slaves? The church vacating reduced the price 
to less than the value of the property, and some 
of its members contributed freely to the purchase. 
But to all appearance the movement would have 
failed had not James Thomas, Jr., then thirty-five 
years old, just rising into business success and 
burdened with labors and cares, turned out among 
the tobacconists and other business men of the 
city, and overcoming hostility or indifference by 
his wisdom, enthusiasm, and personal influence, 
raised from that source three thousand dollars, 
which was at that time, and under all the circum- 
stances, a large sum of money. Many a young 
business man would have shrunk from braving 
prejudice which might injure his own prospects. 
He not only did not shrink, but put his whole soul 
into the effort, fully recognizing its importance. 
To get the money from these slaveholding citizens 

[44] 



was worth incomparably more to the nascent en- 
terprise than if he could have given it himself, 
for those who had given naturally became friendly 
to the undertaking. It would be difficult to find, 
in the whole history of Virginia, a really nobler 
piece of work, and some will rank it highest 
among all the actions of Mr. Thomas's long 
career. 

From 1847 ^^ 1866 — i. e., from the age of 41 
to that of 60, Mr. Thomas was superintendent 
of the First Church Sunday-school, in which he 
had been a teacher from his first connection with 
the church. He had been preceded in the office 
of superintendent by Archibald Thomas, C. Wal- 
thall, James C. Crane, and others. He discerned 
the possibilities of great usefulness in this posi- 
tion, and threw into it all his enthusiasm, energy, 
and administrative talent. Under him the school 
became the largest that had ever been seen in 
Richmond, having sometimes over five hundred 
present. He took great pains about the music, 
which was at that time generally quite dull in 
Sunday-schools. He was glad to get a really 
helpful address at the close, but selected his 
speakers with care, and told them to be short. 

[45] 



He wished everybody to feel that the object of 
their work was religious knowledge and religious 
character, while very anxious to make the exer- 
cises bright and enjoyable, and to employ all 
suitable accessories of interest and benefit. One 
day in 1853 his factories were burned ; and though 
all his energies were characteristically aroused by 
the purpose to rebuild without delay, he yet went 
forth on that very day to supervise and attend his 
Sunday-school picnic, saying that he would not 
forfeit his pledge to the children for any private 
interest. 

The great civil war, 1861 to 1865, has of neces- 
sity become a chronological dividing line in all 
recent Southern history and biography. Mr. 
Thomas foresaw, as few did in any part of the 
country, that the conflict would be vast, severe, 
and protracted. The day it was learned that Fort 
Sumter had been taken he made prompt arrange- 
ments for sending to his foreign markets the 
manufactured product then on hand, or which 
could be speedily prepared, and directed the pro- 
ceeds of sale to be transmitted to his trusted cor- 
respondents in London, asking them to return no 

receipt, but to account to him at the end of the 

[46] 



war — which they did, with the business honor and 
accuracy characteristic of a first-class London 
house. Processes of manufacture were accele- 
rated as much as possible, but the last and very 
valuable cargoes were seized at the mouth of 
James river by United States vessels, illegally 
precipitating the blockade, and entailing a very 
heavy loss, after all his foresight and energy. 
The same day that the Fort Sumter news came, 
he also went round and laid In groceries of every 
kind and various other domestic supplies, enough 
to meet the wants of his large family for five 
years. Some surprised dealers asked what In the 
world he was about, and he said that the war was 
likely to last several years, and a blockade would 
make such things very scarce and costly. The 
Idea was openly ridiculed, and a report went out 
that Mr. Thomas's well-known dyspepsia had 
impaired his sanity. Towards the close of the 
war, a friend who was visiting him mentioned at 
table that he had heard of this accusation, and the 
host said, with a smile, that probably some of his 
old friends were wishing by this time that he had 
bitten them on the day he went crazy. Many a 
time, during the years of scarcity, were these 

[47] 



domestic comforts shared with some invalid, some 
aged person, or needy heusehold. At the outset 
of the war he equipped, at much expense, a bat 
/' tery of artillery which bore his name, and con- 
tinued to give freely to very many public and pri- 
vate objects through the years of conflict and 
trial. After remaining some two or three years 
of the war in Richmond, he removed his family to 
Danville, where they lived till near the end of the 
war, when they returned to Richmond, and shared 
the well-remembered experiences of *' Evacuation 
Day." 

The seventeen years following the war may be 
taken as fairly representing Mr. Thomas's period 
of old age. He had suffered very great losses. Be- 
U sides the blockading seizure, and the various losses 
incident to the progress of the war, and besides 
the value of servants whom he had largely em- 
ployed in his factories, the great fire in Richmond 
on the day of the capture destroyed many of his 
factories and other buildings of great value. The 
profits of his business during the war had been 
largely invested in cotton. An agent in Texas 
had stringent orders the last winter for transpor- 
tation across the Rio Grande at whatever cost, 

[48] 



but communication being interrupted, he shrank 
from the expense. The Trans-Mississippi Con- 
federate authorities nominally took possession of 
the valuable commodity, and so of course it went 
into the hands of the United States government. 
These numerous and varied losses are estimated 
by friends as reaching a million of dollars. They 
were all such as no human foresight or energy 
could prevent. Many of our leading and older 
citizens, who had seen their estates suffer like ter- 
rible reduction, lost all heart and hope. Some 
speedily died, some spent their last years in que- 
rulous complaining, others suited themselves to 
changed circumstances and lived on in dignified 
silence, and yet others sought to retrieve their 
losses by wild speculation, often ending in com- 
plete disaster. 

Mr. Thomas, though fifty-nine years old, and 
with health much impaired by a life of eager toil 
and by all the sorrows of the war, resumed busi- 
ness with characteristic promptness, rebuilt what / 
the fire had destroyed, foresaw that the city would 
again grow, and made still further investments in 
real estate. 



[49] 



It was from this time his earnest effort, as indeed 
he had desired for some years before the war, to 
withdraw from personal devotion to the toils of 
business, and live a less anxious and wearing life. 
He associated with himself in the business at Rich- 
mond and other points several gentlemen in whom 
he had great and deserved confidence, many of 
them previously trained in his employment, and 
did succeed in leaving to them most of the labo- 
rious details ; though, like Charles V. in the con- 
vent and many another example, he could not 
quite lay aside the solicitudes occasioned by tem- 
perament and life-long habit and by the large 
interests involved ; and he did not propose to 
cease from general oversight of his varied affairs. 
He did, however, find more time in this last period 
than formerly for general reading, and the social 
conversation in which he so much delighted, for 
quiet enjoyment in his happy and hospitable home, 
and much exercise by driving in the city and its 
beautiful environs, and for frequent journeys in 
the summer to the springs and occasionally to the 
North. The subjects on which he chiefly loved 
to read, or to hear reading, and to converse with 

congenial friends, were such branches of science 

[50] 



r 



p 



as geology and astronomy, finance and political 
economy; and most of all did he delight in con- 
versing upon the profounder questions of philoso- 
phy, and the deepest truths of revelation. Those 
who had spent their lives in studying such subjects 
would sometimes be amazed at his intellectual 
penetration and comprehensive breadth of view. 
When we come to think of it, these eminent busi- 
ness men, who look so widely around and so far 
ahead and achieve such wonderful successes, must 
almost necessarily be men of great general talent. 
Mr. Thomas felt a deep interest in public affairs, 
but declined all suggestions that he should seek 
political place or power. He would have made a 
wise and influential senator, a vigorous and effi- 
cient governor of the State he loved so well, but 
he preferred to pursue the even tenor of his way, 
seeking to promote education and religion. He 
prolonged his life and usefulness by carefully 
observing many of the conditions of health, and 
bore up bravely against the depressing effect of 
dyspepsia, with consequent nervousness and other 
ailments. One of his seasons of special ill-health 
led to a newspaper report that was ludicrous. 
When Jefferson Davis Was brought to Richmond 

[51] 



F 



in May, 1867, and allowed to give bail, one of 
those who united with Horace Greeley in signing 
the bail-bond was James Thomas, Jr. Being 
extremely nervous at the time, perhaps suffering 
a temporary writer's cramp, he told another per- 
son to write his name, and simply made his mark. 
Another aged gentleman, who was nearly blind, 
did likewise. Certain Northern papers seized 
upon the fact, and scornfully declared that two of 
the leading citizens of Richmond could not write 
their names. A good many of our Northern fel- 
low-citizens have been slow to abandon the per- 
suasion that in consequence of slavery and the 
lack of public schools the Southerners were a bar- 
barous people ; and this, notwithstanding the often 
mentioned fact that there have always been more 
college graduates among Southern congressmen 
than Northern. Mr. Thomas's handwriting was 
clear and vigorous ; in fact, it plainly showed in 
every stroke the energy of his nature. It may be 
added that his letters were sometimes models of 
argument and persuasion, and the style singularly 
lucid and energetic. 

Recovering promptly from a stroke of facial 
paralysis in 1877, he continued clear-headed, ener- 

[52] 



getic, and full of consideration and affection for 
others. Through all these last years he had been 
showing a ripened spirituality, and an increasing 
delight in religious conversation and all the exer- 
cises of public and private devotion ; and amid 
all infirmities he maintained a beautiful cheerful- 
ness. His death, on October 8, 1882, was caused 
by pneumonia, after an illness of but four or five 
days. By a remarkable providence, all of his 
surviving children had come together, and four of 
k his seven sons-in-law. He was aware of the pro- 

bable termination of the disease, and spoke with 
composure of his approaching end. Alas for us, 
if the closing hours of our earthly existence must 
be perturbed and agitated by hurried efforts to 
effect a long-neglected preparation for the life 
eternal. Let us spend our lives in God's service, 
and we shall come to our death in God's peace. 
On one Sunday Mr. Thomas was a deeply inter- 
ested participant in public worship : very early the 
next Sunday morning he passed away to the bet- 
ter life. His age was seventy-six years and eight 
months. His funeral, the next afternoon, seems 
to have stirred all Richmond. He was the oldest 
member of the tobacco trade in the city, and com- 

[53] 



I 



I 



monly supposed to be the wealthiest citizen. He 
was the chief supporter of Richmond College, the 
leading layman of his denomination in the city, 
and an equal in the highest society. But, at the 
same time, he was mourned by such numbers as 
only the recording angel could report, of persons 
whom, by gift or encouragement, by counsel or 
influence, he had helped over the rough places of 
life. It was an interesting circumstance that his 
coffin was borne into and out of the church by 
twelve colored men who had been his servants, 
and that an immense number of colored people 
lined the streets. He had been in the olden time 
a singularly kind master, and had continued to 
take deep interest in the welfare of the freedmen. 
A colored pastor voluntarily published the state- 
ment that hundreds of his race had received gifts 
from Mr. Thomas's benevolent hand. All Virgi- 
nia newspapers, and many of other States, con- 
tained articles upon his life and death, and there 
came speedily a great number of letters of con- 
dolence from all parts of the United States, and 
from several points in Europe. 

We must now attempt to indicate more dis- 
tinctly the leading traits of Mr. Thomas's character. 

[54] 



He was a man of penetrating intelligence. He 
saw into things. Business men of his stamp ex- 
hibit imagination of a very high order, enabling 
them to understand the probable effect of quite 
new circumstances, to work out the logic of untried 
situations. Thus they discern and comprehend 
the opportunities of life when approaching, and 
are ready to seize and turn them to account, while 
most of us see opportunities just a little too late 
for reaping their largest benefit. But this imagi- 
native insight on the part of such a man is not a 
mere instinct, or a blind intuition ; it is connected 
with the power of concentrated and patient atten- 
tion. He would inform himself fully upon a ques- 
tion ; then he thought through the whole matter, 
looked at it on all sides, considered even its re- 
mote and occult relations. This laborious reflec- 
tion might sometimes be a rapid process ; in other 
cases, slow and patient ; but he brooded over the 
whole matter till a clear result was reached. So 
Sir Isaac Newton is reported to have said, to a 
friend who inquired, that he knew of nothing 
peculiar in his own mental operations, unless It 
were a certain habit of patient thinking. Mr. 
Thomas's judgment came to be very highly valued 

[55] 



even upon matters apart from his business expe- 
rience. It is known that several eminent mem- 
bers of the Confederate Congress, and also the 
acute and perspicacious Vice-President, Mr. A. 
H. Stephens, used to seek his opinion upon ques- 
tions of finance, and other matters of legislation 
and government. He showed a remarkable in- 
sight into human nature. All large business 
affairs depend upon a knowledge of physical laws 
and of human nature. To know what employees 
can be relied on, and the special adaptation of 
each one, to understand the character of rivals in 
business, and discern the general wants and ten- 
dencies of the time, is one main element in quali- 
fication for great business achievement. He had 
singular power of extracting information from 
other men by skilful questions ; yet he kept his 
own counsel, relied on himself, sought informa- 
tion from others, but seldom sought advice. In 
all the intercourse of home, of society, in the 
church or in business, what he said was almost 
sure to be judicious, and it was quite certain that 
he would say nothing injudicious. Many would 
fully share the opinion of one who knew him well 



[56] 



r 



in his later years : "I thought, and still think, he 
was the wisest man I ever knew." 

Mr. Thomas was a man of prodigious force of 
will, with unconquerable reliance on his own re- 
sources, and on the merciful providence of the 
God he loved. We have seen that he was never 
discouraged by losses. They seemed to make 
him rise with an immediate spring of elastic 
energy. Perhaps that early experience of sudden 
reverse in Lynchburg may have given to his enter- 
prising nature a helpful touch of sobriety, but at 
no time, from youth to utmost age, was he ever 
timid or hesitating. He had great power of im- 
parting his own enthusiasm to others, like the 
eminent military leaders, and of making each 
man work up to his highest bent. And also like 
a great general, when his processes of reflection 
were completed, his plans laid, and the time for 
action arrived, he would act with an outburst of 
energy. His principal business associate recalls 
how often he would say, "Now strike while the 
iron is hot," or, "Now go ahead like a shot out 
of a shovel." 

He was a man of justice, integrity and honor. 
He knew that "honesty is the best policy," but 

[57] 



y 



he had far deeper reasons than that for being 
honest. Many a young fellow just entering upon 
business is tempted to think, perhaps is told by 
some older men, that an occasional short cut or 
sharp trick is really necessary to success, and that 
everybody does so, now and then. Thank God 
for the fact, that in every large community of our 
country there are examples of men who have 
achieved high business successes while maintain- 
ing a life-long course of unimpeachable integrity 
and high-toned honor. Mr. John S. Gilliat, of 
London, head of the famous old house of J. K. 
Gilliat and Co., which Mr. Thomas had safely 
trusted at the time of the war, and with which he 
had maintained the most intimate business rela- 
tions for long years before and after, in a touch- 
ing letter of condolence, referred to *'the impor- 
tant part he has sustained in our old tobacco 
/ trade, in preserving its high traditions and prin- 
ciples inviolate to the end." In the conflicts of 
business, he did indeed show a very natural unwil- 
lingness to be beaten. He had an imperial nature, 
perhaps sometimes imperious ; and the business 
rival who got in his way might be run over. But 

he was always frank and perfectly sincere. He 

[58] 



promptly recognized the claims of others, and 
would often do a kindness in the very heat of 
some battle on 'Change. Shortly after his death 
a Virginian, who now lives in Louisville, in talking 
with a friend on the street, told of an instance in 
which he once rather timidly bid against the great 
magnate, and the latter turning to him with a plea- 
sant countenance said, "Young man, do you really 
want that? Do you want it for your own use in 
your business?" ''Yes, I do." "Well, you shall 
have it." 

A remarkable thing about this man of strong 
intellect, mighty will, and absorbing toils, was the 
glowing warmth of his affections. Seldom has 
any one of us been honored with a friendship so 
beautifully cordial, thoroughly genuine and frank- 
ly demonstrative. He once invited to be his guest 
on a first visit to the General Association, a young 
minister in whom he took interest for his father s 
sake. After a day or two he said privately to the 
young man, "I think it is a fault of yours that 
you do not heartily greet the brethren to whom I 
introduce you. I am sure you feel kindly towards 
them ; why not take some pains to let them see 
that you do?" It was excellent counsel, which a 

[59] 



bashful youth much needed. The love of wife and 
children is, let us thankfully recognize, a very com- 
mon thing ; but there are natures in which it be- 
comes so rich and overflowing as to be uncommon 
and characteristic ; and this was strikingly true In 
the present case. He did not love merely with 
the love commanded by their deserts ; he poured 
out upon them the spontaneous riches of his great 
hearted affection, a mighty torrent of love like the 
James river when in flood, an enveloping atmos- 
phere of love as when the setting sun bathes Vir- 
ginia's blue mountains in an almost unearthly 
glory. But there are no words to tell. The great 
novelists of our age, and the great poets of all the 
ages, have vainly striven to describe what conju- 
gal and parental love may be. The young are apt 
to think they have a monopoly in this regard ; but 
perchance there are souls that ever expand with 
life's enlarging experiences, till their affections 
attain a depth and height, a length and breadth, 
which the young must bide their time If they would 
understand. Mr. Thomas's domestic life was very 
admirable. He made companions of his children, 
and from him nothing was withheld. On his part 

firmness, tenderness, love ; on their part respect, 

[60] 



confidence, obedience, reverence, love. One who 
has seen much of whatsoever is noblest in human 
life declares : "Home had new significance as ap- 
plied to his household." All who ever sojourned 
in that home will remember his great delight in 
music. There were skilled performers there, and 
sweet voices that could thrill the soul. However 
others might be charmed, his admiring delight 
seemed to overtop all else, so natural and simple, 
so cordial and genuine. He had a great love of 
the beautiful in general ; and that a noble hall 
designed especially for the promotion of art should 
become a memorial of him is a thing congruous 
and appropriate. The profound impression made 
upon his household by his whole character and 
life may be shown from a fact of family history 
which of necessity became known to the public. 
He left an incomplete w^ill, only in part indicating 
his purposes. This might have been, and not 
unreasonably, the occasion of protracted and ex- 
pensive litigation; but reverence for the father's 
memory, loving acquiescence in his supposed wish- 
es, was the law for a peaceful adjustment. Those 
who predicted law-suits and family feuds were dis- 
appointed. 

[6i] 



We have already made some reference to Mr. 
Thomas's religious life. Here all his high and 
varied endowments showed themselves, and were 
in turn developed, chastened, controlled by Chris- 
tian principles and motives. We have said that 
his profound thinking upon the greatest themes of 
theology often surprised his ministerial friends. 
Calvinism compels to deep thinking. One must 
not dare to say that this makes any person dislike 
Calvinism, but it certainly attracts some minds 
towards it. Hugh Miller raises the question 
whether the Scotch were Presbyterians because 
metaphysical, or metaphysical because Presbyteri- 
ans ; and the answer doubtless is that each tend- 
ency promoted the other. 

Mr. Thomas showed intense delight in public 
worship and preaching, and this grew more deep 
and tender with his advancing years. He greatly 
loved to have some deeply devout man, it might 
be layman or minister, conduct the worship of his 
family, that he might "hear him pray." His own 
prayers are said by the venerable Dr. Ryland, 
who knew him from youth, to have been singular- 
ly reverent and tender. He was fond of having 

sermons read to him by his daughters, or the Pil- 

[62] 



grim's Progress. He would say about the ser- 
mons of Richard Fuller and Maclaren, "Oh, they 
are grand ! Christ all through!" Yet there was 
no substitute with him for the daily study of the 
word of God. At church, it was an inspiration to 
a preacher to watch the glowing countenance of 
such a hearer. In proportion as the sermon ap- 
proached the very heart of the Gospel, his deep 
and demonstrative enjoyment increased. Without 
wishing to remove any part of the solemn respon- 
sibility which rests upon ministers of the Gospel, 
it may be earnestly said that a larger proportion 
of deeply sympathetic hearers would bring about 
a higher quality of preaching. 

Mr. Thomas was very modest and self-reproach- 
ful in talking about his personal relation to Christ. 
When he first came before the church, and was 
asked to tell his experience, he is said to have 
simply quoted one sentence of Scripture: 'T 
count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." He had 
through life a great scorn of everything like cant, 
and a passion for genuineness, for realness in all 
things. His religion was intensely practical, dom- 
inating all his thoughts, feelings, purposes, actions, 

[63] 



his every-day life, his whole being. He believed 
in soul-liberty, fully conceding to others what he 
claimed for himself Very decided in his religious 
views, he was no harsh sectarian. Indeed, he saw 
good in every man, apologized for human weak- 
nesses, and would reprove hasty judgments and 
ascription of bad motives. It was sometimes 
striking to observe his magnanimity. In so strong 
a nature, conscious of high intelligence and sound 
judgment, a willingness to yield one's own opinion 
or preference, is a higher proof of Christian prin- 
ciple than perhaps any other. If men are to work 
together for the promotion of good objects, each 
of them must often consent to work in what does 
not appear to him quite the best way. Mr. 
Thomas often did this, and would privately urge 
others to yield a point to some venerable or sen- 
sitive brother. Thus his whole religious influence 
was conservative. In the funeral addresses, he 
was spoken of by his latest pastor as "the peace- 
maker of the church," and by an earlier pastor 
of many years as "a man of sanctified common 
sense." 

His charities began early in life, and expanded 
into great breadth and variety of public and pri- 

[64] 



vate benevolence. After growing wealthy, he 
liked to do that which is often so judicious, to 
make some large gift the inducement for others 
to give. On the other hand, he would sometimes 
say privately to a collector in whom he had confi- 
dence, ''Get all you can, and I'll see you through." 
His private charities were more various than can 
be described, more numerous than will ever be 
known. Not a few of them became known to his 
family only after his death ; and sometimes even 
the recipients of his bounty did not know whence 
it came. In numerous instances and varied ways 
he helped young men to get started in business, 
or relieved them when in difficulty. He aided the 
young of both sexes in gaining education, some- 
times continuing this to the same person for a 
term of years. He would send a girl a bridal 
trousseau, or repeated gifts in some delicate fash- 
ion to a needy widow. A struggling and ill-paid 
minister would receive a suit of clothes, or a sum 
of money, sent through some one else as a gift 
from his friends, though nearly all really came 
from one friend ; or would be invited to spend 
some weeks at the Springs, with the understand- 
ing that it would cost him nothing. At one time, 

[65] 



when his son and sons-in-law were absent, he 
requested a friend to look out for people who 
were needy and deserving, and give them a bar- 
rel of flour, or a load of coal, or a sum of money 
on his account, and to tell no one whatever. Of 
course he could not respond favorably to all the 
applications with which every man known to be 
wealthy and generous is overwhelmed, and some 
of the disappointed may have represented, may 
have sincerely thought, that he was wanting in 
benevolence — a species of misapprehension which 
the kindest persons, both rich and poor, must 
sometimes endure. But those who had any gen- 
eral knowledge of his life knew well that he was 
systematic in large donations, and delighted in all 
manner of lesser gifts. These charities were by 
no means merely impulsive, but were the result of 
principle and prayerful reflection. He told one to 
whom he would speak freely that he had a great 
dread of becoming stingy with advancing years, 
and set himself to escape it. Whenever he suf- 
fered a great business loss, he was almost sure to 
follow it immediately by a considerable gift to 
something or somebody, by way of overcoming 
the natural tendency to hold fast to what remained. 

[66] 



I 



Reserving what is to be said of Mr. Thomas's 
educational gifts and labors, it may at this point 
be added that his whole personal appearance finely 
corresponded to his character. The form was 
massive and well-proportioned ; not exactly quick, *^ 
but steadily energetic in movement. The counte- 
nance was made up of strong and symmetrical 
features — an expansive forehead, a mouth that ^ 
showed unbounded resolution and force, but also 
flexibility and kindliness, an eye that could gleam ^ 
like the sun or be soft as a star, a voice strong, 
resonant, varied, in every tone agreeable. And 
his total bearing and manner were just himself. 
Let us borrow the words of one who knows men, 
and who knew him: *'He was to me physically, 
intellectually, morally and spiritually, nothing less 
than majestic." 

It remains to speak especially of Mr. Thomas's 
interest in the cause of higher education. He no 
doubt contributed as a member of the First Church 
to the Virginia Baptist Seminary, founded in 1832, 
and presided over from the beginning by Robert 
Ryland. When, in 1840, it was incorporated as ' 
Richmond College, he was made one of the trus- 
tees, and so continued. He gave money at many 

[67] 



.^ac^^m 



times to meet the general expenses, and to carry 
the institution over some crisis, and unsparingly 
gave his best energies and judgment, and his pre- 
cious time, to whatsoever would promote the in- 
terests of the enterprise. Keenly appreciating 
the value of knowledge and mental training, burn- 
ing with desire to see the rapidly growing Baptist 
denomination lifted up by the more general edu- 
cation of its ministry and membership, passion- 
ately loving his native State and eager to advance 
her highest interests, he lavished his energy and 
enthusiasm upon this institution of higher educa- 
tion. 

But that was by no means enough. He felt 
the similar need as to the other sex, and was the 
father of the Richmond Female Institute. He 
purchased the lot, made the first contribution to 
the stock for the erection of buildings, stirred up 
leading ministers and laymen to see the import- 
ance of the undertaking, persevered when others 
were discouraged, gave again and again, it is not 
known how much, until the Institute entered upon 
its useful work in September, 1854. It is an honor 
to our age that the real education of women is at 
last beginning to be highly appreciated. Two 

[68] 



points seem now to demand especial attention. 
The best female schools ought to be endowed, so 
that first-class instructors may be employed in 
adequate number, and yet the charge for tuition 
may be within the reach of pupils who are not 
wealthy. And there ought to be ample provision 
for election in study, so that the intellectual train- 
ing may be as severe as that of the foremost 
young men, where a girl's health and turn of mind 
and aspirations make it desirable, while yet the 
great majority shall not be pressed into undertak- 
ing such a course. 

When the Southern Baptist Theological Semi- 
nary began operations at Greenville, South Caro- 
lina, in 1859, offering theological instruction to 
Baptist students from all the Southern States, Mr. 
Thomas was not at first disposed to help it. He 
knew the great benefit to ministers of general 
education such as the colleges give, but was ac- 
quainted with very few who had added to this 
the special training of a theological seminary, and 
was not quite sure that this last was greatly to be 
desired. He grew every year more eager to see 
the college strengthened, and doubted whether 
this did not need and deserve all that he could 

[69] 



give. He had always disliked to see any minister 
leave Virginia, and this seminary was taking away 
two Virginia ministers at one blow. He would 
not help, though personally very kind to all con- 
cerned. But when the seminary came out of the 
war robbed of that adequate endowment which it 
had possessed in the bonds of Southern planters, 
and now almost entirely destitute ; when he saw 
the persistent efforts of those interested to main- 
tain and build up the institution, when he began 
gradually to understand its real aims and tenden- 
cies, and to see the effect of its training upon 
some young ministers, he quietly changed his 
mind, as only weak men are unable to do, and 
again and again made valuable donations for the 
seminary's current support and permanent endow- 
ment. 

During the war Richmond College was sus- 
pended, and the buildings occupied as barracks 
or hospitals. In 1862 all the bank stocks and the 
city and railroad bonds belonging to the endow- 
ment were sold by the trustees at a great appa- 
rent profit and converted into Confederate bonds. 
This action Mr. Thomas, with his usual insight 

and judgment, strenuously and vehemently re- 

[70] 



p sisted, as involving a risk which fiduciaries had no 

right to run. From that time he felt that the col- 
lege he loved was practically ruined. And so 
indeed it seemed when the General Association 
met in Richmond in t866. But such able and 
honored alumni as John C. Long, Geo. B. Taylor, 
H. H. Harris, W. E. Hatcher and others brought 
the matter before the General Association, and 
urged with kindling love and zeal that the college 
should be reopened and re-endowed. "The cli- 
max was reached when James Thomas, Jr., from 
his place near the centre of the church, briefly 
told how, as one of the trustees, he had protested 
against the change of investment, and when it 
was made in spite of all protest he had given up 
in despair, but added that 'the enthusiasm of those 
young men' had touched him, and that he was 
ready to subscribe five thousand dollars for ano- 
ther endowment, and, pending its collection, pay 
the salary of one professor. This thrilled the 
audience with hope, and settled the question."* 
Dr. A. M. Poindexter at once began a collection, 
and by appointment of the board became regular 

^' Dr. H. H. Harris, Historical Sketch, appended to Catalogue of 
1 884-' 85. 

[71] 



agent for two years. Mr. Thomas personally 
went with him around alh Richmond, to men of 
all denominations and of no denomination, put- 
ting his whole force into the effort. The result of 
the contributions throughout the State was about 
seventy-five thousand dollars, payable in five an- 
nual instalments. In the utterly wrecked finan- 
cial condition at that time, a large portion was 
never actually paid in, but the college went on, 
with a new organization, and several very able 
professors, who soon gave it a reputation for first- 
class work. 

In 1872 the General Association resolved to 
celebrate the next year its semi-centennial, and, 
among other things, to raise a hundred thousand 
dollars for the endowment and buildings of Rich- 
mond College. Before the adjournment, Mr. 
Thomas came forward, and, in a few burning 
words, urged that they should increase the pro- 
posed sum to three hundred thousand, which was 
done. Dr. J. L. Burrows took the agency, and 
prosecuted it with characteristic energy and en- 
thusiasm, and very nearly the amount proposed 
was reached in cash, bonds, and many kinds of 

promises. Although the next year, 1873, brought 

[72] 



the great financial crash, which long prostrated 
the whole country, at least one hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars of this memorial fund were actu- 
ally received. Some cautious persons at the time 
of the original proposition, and many "prophets 
after the event," declared that Mr. Thomas had 
been utterly carried away by extravagant ideas in 
asking such a sum from the impoverished Baptists 
of Virginia. Mr. Thomas doubtless knew that a 
financial crisis would come ere many years ; but 
no one could tell how soon, and at that time the 
United States currency had become in some quar- 
ters quite abundant. If the financial crisis had 
been delayed two years longer, in all probability 
very nearly the whole amount proposed would 
have been received. As it was, the effort actually 
yielded fifty per cent, more than the original pro- 
position. Where is the just ground of complaint 
or censure? When William Carey said, "Attempt 
great things for God, and expect great things from 
God," he might very well have added, if the ques- 
tion had been raised, "and hold fast your trust in 
God's providence, even though you sometimes 
partly fail." 



[73] 



On the death of Dr. Jeter, who had been a Hfe- 
long friend of the college, and long President of 
the Board of Trustees, James Thomas, Jr., was, 
on March 9, 1880, elected President of the Trus- 
tees in his place. Not long after, some brethren 
proposed an effort to erect a library hall, as a 
*' Jeter Memorial." This large undertaking lan- 
guished, and seemed likely to fail, when Mr. 
Thomas "again came to the rescue with a sub- 
scription of five thousand dollars, on condition 
that the hall be so planned as to complete the 
unfinished college building." We see that he had 
an eye to architectural effect as well as conve- 
nience. Then ''by the agency of Dr. A. E. Dick- 
inson some thirty-five thousand dollars more was 
raised, mostly in the North ;" and we behold the 
completed and beautiful result. Let us miss no 
opportunity of repeating the expression of most 
cordial gratitude to the noble Christians at the 
North who have so generously aided this and 
other struggling Southern institutions of higher 
education. And let us afford them the most 
pleasing proof that they gave wisely, by putting 
forth diligent exertions to strengthen these insti- 
tutions still further. 

[74] 



Mr. Thomas's last gift to the college was made 
in 1 88 1, a year before his death, being an endow- 
ment of twenty-five thousand dollars for a profes- 
sorship — and the school of Philosophy was subse- 
quently designated. The total amount of his gifts 
to the college, first and last, has been variously 
estimated at from fifty to sixty thousand dollars, 
but cannot now be accurately determined. 

Learning that the trustees proposed to set apart 
this museum and art hall as a memorial of James 
Thomas, Jr., his family have united in giving ten 
thousand dollars to found "The Thomas Museum 
Lecture Endowment." The income of this endow- 
ment is to be used annually " to secure the deliv- 
ery at the college (and, if practicable, in this hall) 
of a course of lectures on subjects either of sci- 
ence, or of philosophy, or of art." These lectures 
are to be delivered by "really eminent men of 
our own and of other countries," and are to be 
open to the public. 

We should remember that not even the largest 
donations of this faithful friend were probably so 
helpful to the college as his frequent smaller gifts 
at critical periods. Many times, both before and 
after the war, when the finances fell short and the 

[75] 



trustees were utterly at a loss, he quietly said that 
he would pay the debt, or that he would give so 
and so upon such conditions, and thus the wheels 
were kept moving. Ah ! there are few that will 
ever know the long and sore struggle by which 
our higher institutions have been sustained and 
gradually strengthened, especially In the trying 
years that followed the war. Thank God for the 
devoted men who have persevered in their ill-paid 
task of high instruction, for the many who have 
given something amid poverty and embarrass- 
ment, and for the few special friends of one or 
another Institution who have stood by, and, at 
whatsoever inconvenience to themselves, have 
stepped forward in every season of peril. But 
most of all did Mr. Thomas aid this college by 
his wise counsels, and by the inspiration of his 
elevated, broad, and cheerful views as to the aims 
and possibilities of higher education. A great 
Institution of the sort cannot be suddenly created ; 
it must be a growth. Much has been done for 
Richmond College by earlier and later and pres- 
ent teachers — some of them highly gifted and 
very noble men ; much by diligent students, who 
have furnished an inspiring example to their fel- 

[76J 



lows during college life, and are reflecting true 
honor upon their alma mater by subsequent use- 
fulness and renown ; much by the wise manage- 
ment of the trustees, in the city and throughout 
the State, and by the popular interest awakened 
through the very necessity of repeatedly appeal- 
ing for current support and endowment ; but 
among the most potent elements that have en- 
tered into the very constitution and gone to deter- 
mine the vital influence of Richmond College, 
have been the spirit snd temper of the remarka- 
ble man whose career we have this evening sur- 
veyed. It has long been true, and will long con- 
tinue to be, that students going forth from this 
place must carry with them, among those uncon- 
scious impressions which are often so powerful, 
some impress from the character of Jas. Thomas, 
Junior. 

This college is fortunate in its location. ^ In 
many another State are excellent institutions, 
whose wisest friends now keenly wish that they 
too had been established at some large and grow- 
ing city. The old idea that college life ought to 
be secluded from the temptations of a great city, 
whether wise or not, is now simply impracticable. 

[77] 
L.ofC. 



We might say that those who are willing to be 
overcome by the temptations of incipient man- 
hood will be amply tempted in any quiet village 
or country neighborhood. ' But certainly, at the 
present time, no secluded college cart prosper 
without a railway to bring the students ; and this 
railway can bring temptations in many forms from 
the nearest cities, or carry students on perilous 
visits. We have come to see that for the real and 
terrible dangers which beset the period usually 
embraced in college life there is no true remedy 
but in correct principles instilled during child- 
hood, in home influence kept vivid by diligently 
sustained correspondence, in the better aspira- 
tions that exalt humanity, and in the grace that 
comes down from heaven. The great advantages 
to a college of location in a large city are numer- 
ous and obvious. City and college can greatly 
aid e^ch other in the promotion of true culture, 
and the real elevation of society. In the check- 
ered history of this widely useful and richly 
promising institution, it has frequently received 
unspeakably important assistance from the wise 
counsels, the generous gifts, the hearty support 
in every sense, not merely of one extraordinary 

[78] 



man, but of many noble citizens. Let us hope 
that the example on which we have been reflect- 
ing will prove contagious ; that many prosperous 
dwellers in Virginia's chief city and fair capital 
may cherish a living and practical interest in Rich- 
mond College ; that they may cause it to grow 
every year more beautiful in its outward appoint- 
ments, more ample in the endowment of its in- 
struction, and stronger in every element of whole- 
some influence. The history of civilization shows 
that the safest and most permanent investments 
men ever make are in institutions of education 
and religion. These live amid revolutions and 
social changes. Long centuries after a man has 
been otherwise forgotten, and his influence is no 
longer discernible amid the rushing tide of human 
affairs, what he once thus invested will still abide, 
a perennial source of good to mankind and of 
glory to God. 



[79] 



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